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old_source/blog/036-sass-and-native-nesting.md
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old_source/blog/036-sass-and-native-nesting.md
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---
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title: "Sass and Native Nesting"
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author: Natalie Weizenbaum
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date: 2023-03-29 14:30 PST
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---
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The stable release of Chrome 112, which is releasing today, is the first stable
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browser to add support for the new [native CSS nesting feature]. This feature—
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inspired by Sass's nesting—adds the ability to nest style rules in plain CSS,
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and even uses Sass's convention of `&` to refer to the parent selector.
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[native CSS nesting spec]: https://drafts.csswg.org/css-nesting/
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We here at Sass HQ are honored every time our language design inspires
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improvements in CSS itself. We're excited to see the usability and clarity
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benefits of nesting brought to even more CSS authors as more browsers continue
|
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to roll out support for this feature.
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## The Future of Sass Nesting
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This raises an important question, though: what will happen to Sass's nesting?
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First of all, we won't ever change existing valid Sass code so that it starts
|
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emitting CSS that's incompatible with widely-used browsers. This means that even
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if we did decide to phase out Sass nesting and just emit plain CSS nesting
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instead, we wouldn't do so until [98% of the global browser market share]
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supported native nesting.
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[98% of the global browser market share]: https://github.com/sass/dart-sass#browser-compatibility
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More importantly, though, **native CSS nesting is subtly incompatible with Sass
|
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nesting**. This affects three different cases:
|
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1. Native CSS nesting implicitly wraps the parent selector in [`:is()`], while
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Sass copies its text into the resolved selector. That means that
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[`:is()`]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/:is
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```scss
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.foo, #bar {
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.baz { /* ... */ }
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}
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```
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produces the selector `.foo .baz, #bar .baz` in Sass but `:is(.foo, #bar)
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.baz` in native CSS. This changes the specificity: `:is()` always has the
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specificity of its _most specific selector_, so `:is(.foo, #bar) .baz` will
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match
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```html
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<div class=foo>
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<p class=baz>
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</div>
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```
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with specificity 1 0 1 in native CSS and 0 0 2 in Sass even though neither
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element is matched by ID.
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2. Also because native CSS nesting uses `:is()`, a parent selector with
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descendant combinators will behave differently.
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```scss
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.foo .bar {
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.green-theme & { /* ... */ }
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}
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```
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produces the selector `.green-theme .foo .bar` in Sass, but in native CSS it
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produces `.green-theme :is(.foo .bar)`. This means that the native CSS
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version will match
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```html
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<div class=foo>
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<div class="green-theme">
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<p class=bar>
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</div>
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</div>
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```
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but Sass will not, since the element matching `.foo` is outside the element
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matching `.green-theme`.
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3. Sass nesting and native CSS nesting both support syntax that looks like
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`&foo`, but it means different things. In Sass, this adds a suffix to the
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parent selector, so
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```scss
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.foo {
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&-suffix { /* ... */ }
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}
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```
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produces the selector `.foo-suffix`. But in native CSS, this adds a type
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selector to the parent selector, so
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```scss
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.foo {
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&div { /* ... */ }
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}
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```
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produces the selector `div.foo` (where Sass would produce `.foodiv` instead).
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Native CSS nesting has no way to add a suffix to a selector like Sass.
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### Design Commitments
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When considering how to handle this new CSS feature, we have two important
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design commitments to keep in mind:
|
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* We're committed to being a CSS superset. All valid CSS that's supported by a
|
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real browser should also work in Sass with the same semantics.
|
||||
|
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* We're committed to backwards compatibility. As much as possible, we want to
|
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avoid changing the semantics of existing stylesheets, and if we need to do so
|
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we want to give users as much time and resources as possible to make the
|
||||
change gracefully.
|
||||
|
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In most cases, remaining a CSS superset trumps backwards compatibility. However,
|
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nesting is one of the oldest and most widely-used Sass features so we're
|
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particularly reluctant to change it, especially in ways that would drop support
|
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for widely-used features like `&-suffix` that don't have an elegant equivalent
|
||||
in native CSS.
|
||||
|
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### The Plan for Sass
|
||||
|
||||
**In the short term**, we don't intend to change anything about Sass nesting.
|
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Sass will simply not support plain CSS nesting unless we can do so in a way
|
||||
that's fully compatible with existing Sass behavior.
|
||||
|
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We _will_ add support for parsing plain CSS nesting in `.css` files. This
|
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nesting won't be resolved in any way; Sass will just emit it as-is.
|
||||
|
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**In the long term**, once [`:is()` is supported by 98% of the global browser
|
||||
market share], we'll start transitioning Sass to emit `:is()` when resolving
|
||||
Sass nesting. This will make Sass behave like CSS in the first two behavioral
|
||||
incompatibilities. We will consider this a breaking change, and release it as
|
||||
part of a major version release to avoid unexpectedly breaking existing
|
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stylesheets. We'll do our best to make this transition as smooth as possible
|
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using the [Sass Migrator].
|
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|
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[`:is()` is supported by 98% of the global browser market share]: https://caniuse.com/css-matches-pseudo
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[Sass Migrator]: /documentation/cli/migrator
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We will _not_ drop our current behavior for `&-suffix` unless we can come up
|
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with a comparably ergonomic way to represent it that's more compatible with CSS.
|
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This behavior is too important to existing Sass users, and the benefit of the
|
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plain CSS version is not strong enough to override that.
|
146
source/blog/036-sass-and-native-nesting.md
Normal file
146
source/blog/036-sass-and-native-nesting.md
Normal file
@ -0,0 +1,146 @@
|
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---
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title: "Sass and Native Nesting"
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author: Natalie Weizenbaum
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date: 2023-03-29 14:30:00 -8
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---
|
||||
|
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The stable release of Chrome 112, which is releasing today, is the first stable
|
||||
browser to add support for the new [native CSS nesting feature]. This
|
||||
feature—inspired by Sass's nesting—adds the ability to nest style rules in plain
|
||||
CSS, and even uses Sass's convention of `&` to refer to the parent selector.
|
||||
|
||||
[native CSS nesting feature]: https://drafts.csswg.org/css-nesting/
|
||||
|
||||
We here at Sass HQ are honored every time our language design inspires
|
||||
improvements in CSS itself. We're excited to see the usability and clarity
|
||||
benefits of nesting brought to even more CSS authors as more browsers continue
|
||||
to roll out support for this feature.
|
||||
|
||||
## The Future of Sass Nesting
|
||||
|
||||
This raises an important question, though: what will happen to Sass's nesting?
|
||||
First of all, we won't ever change existing valid Sass code so that it starts
|
||||
emitting CSS that's incompatible with widely-used browsers. This means that even
|
||||
if we did decide to phase out Sass nesting and just emit plain CSS nesting
|
||||
instead, we wouldn't do so until [98% of the global browser market share]
|
||||
supported native nesting.
|
||||
|
||||
[98% of the global browser market share]: https://github.com/sass/dart-sass#browser-compatibility
|
||||
|
||||
More importantly, though, **native CSS nesting is subtly incompatible with Sass
|
||||
nesting**. This affects three different cases:
|
||||
|
||||
1. Native CSS nesting implicitly wraps the parent selector in [`:is()`], while
|
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Sass copies its text into the resolved selector. That means that
|
||||
|
||||
[`:is()`]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/:is
|
||||
|
||||
```scss
|
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.foo, #bar {
|
||||
.baz { /* ... */ }
|
||||
}
|
||||
```
|
||||
|
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produces the selector `.foo .baz, #bar .baz` in Sass but `:is(.foo, #bar)
|
||||
.baz` in native CSS. This changes the specificity: `:is()` always has the
|
||||
specificity of its _most specific selector_, so `:is(.foo, #bar) .baz` will
|
||||
match
|
||||
|
||||
```html
|
||||
<div class=foo>
|
||||
<p class=baz>
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
```
|
||||
|
||||
with specificity 1 0 1 in native CSS and 0 0 2 in Sass even though neither
|
||||
element is matched by ID.
|
||||
|
||||
2. Also because native CSS nesting uses `:is()`, a parent selector with
|
||||
descendant combinators will behave differently.
|
||||
|
||||
```scss
|
||||
.foo .bar {
|
||||
.green-theme & { /* ... */ }
|
||||
}
|
||||
```
|
||||
|
||||
produces the selector `.green-theme .foo .bar` in Sass, but in native CSS it
|
||||
produces `.green-theme :is(.foo .bar)`. This means that the native CSS
|
||||
version will match
|
||||
|
||||
```html
|
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<div class=foo>
|
||||
<div class="green-theme">
|
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<p class=bar>
|
||||
</div>
|
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</div>
|
||||
```
|
||||
|
||||
but Sass will not, since the element matching `.foo` is outside the element
|
||||
matching `.green-theme`.
|
||||
|
||||
3. Sass nesting and native CSS nesting both support syntax that looks like
|
||||
`&foo`, but it means different things. In Sass, this adds a suffix to the
|
||||
parent selector, so
|
||||
|
||||
```scss
|
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.foo {
|
||||
&-suffix { /* ... */ }
|
||||
}
|
||||
```
|
||||
|
||||
produces the selector `.foo-suffix`. But in native CSS, this adds a type
|
||||
selector to the parent selector, so
|
||||
|
||||
```scss
|
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.foo {
|
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&div { /* ... */ }
|
||||
}
|
||||
```
|
||||
|
||||
produces the selector `div.foo` (where Sass would produce `.foodiv` instead).
|
||||
Native CSS nesting has no way to add a suffix to a selector like Sass.
|
||||
|
||||
### Design Commitments
|
||||
|
||||
When considering how to handle this new CSS feature, we have two important
|
||||
design commitments to keep in mind:
|
||||
|
||||
* We're committed to being a CSS superset. All valid CSS that's supported by a
|
||||
real browser should also work in Sass with the same semantics.
|
||||
|
||||
* We're committed to backwards compatibility. As much as possible, we want to
|
||||
avoid changing the semantics of existing stylesheets, and if we need to do so
|
||||
we want to give users as much time and resources as possible to make the
|
||||
change gracefully.
|
||||
|
||||
In most cases, remaining a CSS superset trumps backwards compatibility. However,
|
||||
nesting is one of the oldest and most widely-used Sass features so we're
|
||||
particularly reluctant to change it, especially in ways that would drop support
|
||||
for widely-used features like `&-suffix` that don't have an elegant equivalent
|
||||
in native CSS.
|
||||
|
||||
### The Plan for Sass
|
||||
|
||||
**In the short term**, we don't intend to change anything about Sass nesting.
|
||||
Sass will simply not support plain CSS nesting unless we can do so in a way
|
||||
that's fully compatible with existing Sass behavior.
|
||||
|
||||
We _will_ add support for parsing plain CSS nesting in `.css` files. This
|
||||
nesting won't be resolved in any way; Sass will just emit it as-is.
|
||||
|
||||
**In the long term**, once [`:is()` is supported by 98% of the global browser
|
||||
market share], we'll start transitioning Sass to emit `:is()` when resolving
|
||||
Sass nesting. This will make Sass behave like CSS in the first two behavioral
|
||||
incompatibilities. We will consider this a breaking change, and release it as
|
||||
part of a major version release to avoid unexpectedly breaking existing
|
||||
stylesheets. We'll do our best to make this transition as smooth as possible
|
||||
using the [Sass Migrator].
|
||||
|
||||
[`:is()` is supported by 98% of the global browser market share]: https://caniuse.com/css-matches-pseudo
|
||||
[Sass Migrator]: /documentation/cli/migrator
|
||||
|
||||
We will _not_ drop our current behavior for `&-suffix` unless we can come up
|
||||
with a comparably ergonomic way to represent it that's more compatible with CSS.
|
||||
This behavior is too important to existing Sass users, and the benefit of the
|
||||
plain CSS version is not strong enough to override that.
|
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